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and impudently wanted to destroy the altar which Chrisfs servant had erected with holy zeal. He suddenly shook and stiffened, lacking control over his members, amazed at his faintness. This shock brought him to reason, so he went out to the peopie and announced that the Christian God is really powerful. He also said that they should not destroy His altar, but ought to erect another one for the gods next to it, in this way they would be able to enjoy both His and their favours. The peopie agreed and built another altar, devoted to idols, near the Lord’s altar. And sińce then they madę offerings to God at one and to demons at the other, serving at both with equal ardour, the only difference being that the deeply rooted habit of idolatry madę the peopie morę obedient to the idols.” This is the Information about the apostasy of Szczecin found in The life from Priifenmg (III, 5).

A similar, though shorter version is given by Herbord (III, 16). These passages are worth a thorough analysis, as they are the only information in written sources - apart from a iiterary metaphor in Versus Lubensis (MPH, vol. 3, 1961, p. 711) - conceming the existence of altars among the Western Slavs. The records suggest a syncretic cult, the erection of a pagan altar in St Adalbert’s church can be regarded as a result of Christian influence. The reliability of the text can be, however, questioned, as in Beda Venerabilis’s work Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (II, 15), which was one of the mainstays of medieval erudition, there is an almost identical description of a syncretic cult from the period when the Anglo-Saxons were Christianized. Redwald, king of East Anglia, is said to have erected two altars in a tempie, one for Christ, the other for idols, after a pagan revival. This, however, does not conclude the matter either. According to Thietmar (VIII, 4), also in Hungary prince Geza worshiped both Christ and idols. The pagan mentality of the Germans and the Slavs was alike, neither the former nor the latter denied Chrisfs power, therefore the idea of precipitating the new god in such an unorthodox way might have been conceived in Szczecin entirely independently.

Ebo (111, 1) presented the events in a different manner. In his relation the Szczecinians, induced by the priests, “found the idols and revived the cus-tomary ritual of sacriflces and ceremonies, while Chrisfs churches were half destroyed.” The temples were rebuilt. A priest urged: ‘“Erect (...) a house for your gods next to the tempie of the Teutonic God and worship him along with your gods (...)’ and they accepted his teaching.” Ebo does not mention erecting an altar for idols in the church.

The bishop’s return to the town during his second mission in 1128 was not completely smooth. He was attacked by a hostile crowd, but at that time there was already a group of supporters of Christianity in the town and they saved Otto from death which threatened him sińce his arrival (The life from Priifenmg, II, 7; Herbord, III, 14). Otto showed great courage. A blood-thirsty crowd invaded St Peter and Paul’s church when he was celebrating the Mass. The bishop in liturgical robes went straight from the altar through the centre of the town, and intending to address the peopie, stopped at “an elevated town sąuare,” where - according to The Life from Priifenmg (III, 8) - a great crowd assembled. The bishop, through an interpreter, called them to repent for sins. Then, “the villainous pagan priest arrived and with great noise interrupted the sermon. Finally he addressed the present, urging them to join their voices in praising the gods, who handed to them the evident enemies of the country and of themselves. Others, he continued, should die in torment, while the bishop, as the main instigator of all calamities, should be cut into pieces. Having said that, he wanted to throw a spear, which he carried with him as they usually do, at Lord’s saint. Encouraging others to do the same, he said: ’He should die of everyone’s missiles’. But when the crowd of miserable pagans dared to raise their hands against the bishop, they stiffened of this attempt and experienced the power of the One, whose priest they wanted to kill. And together with the instigator they stood rooted to the ground.”

The place from which Otto preached was not chosen by coincidence. According to Ebo (III, 15), the bishop spoke from a mound. He says that there were “large pyramids there, built very high, as the pagans customarily do. Having gathered the peopie, the pious preacher climbed one of the pyramids with his companions and through his interpreter Adalbert [later bishop of Wolin] he began to show the way of truth to those who were erring...” Then, as Herbord wrote (III, 18), “one of the [pagan] priests, a devilish man (yir Belial), angry, obese and tali, (...) snorting and pufling, came to the steps of the rostrum and struck its pillar two mighty blows,” after which he urged the peopie to kill the bishop (Banaszkiewicz, 1992). These passages point to another very important element of the cult topogra-phy of Szczecin: the mould, situated near the tempie, similar to moulds known from Prague and Cracow, not to mention numerous Germanie ana-logues (de Vries, 1956-1957, p. 345-349). Such a mould was the place where the prince usually sat during ceremonies, counselling assemblies and adjudi-cation. According to Herbord (III, 17, cf. II, 30), in Szczecin heralds and town oflicials spoke to the dtizens from the mould (Chłopocka, Leciejewicz, Wieczorowski, 1985, p. 40; Wachowski, 1950, p. 233; Kiersnowski, 1953, p. 118). On it or near it there was a pillar and wooden steps, constituting the construction of this sign of authority (Banaszkiewicz, 1990). Otto’s preach-ing a sermon from such a pulpit seems to be an act of seizing a place reserved to the leaders.

All the Lives describe a nut-tree which grew in Szczecin (Niewęgłowski, 1993). Otto, pleaded by the inhabitants, left it intact, providing that they stop worshiping it. When the bishop was renovating the churches after the apostasy and preaching to the converts, “incidentally, there was a man at that time, who owned a nut-tree, to which the stupid pagan peopie came as if to a sanctity. There was no way to.make him allow to cut the tree, especially that he valued it as an object of cult and had profits from it.

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